What s New in Server 2012? Alex Graham Central Library Consortium agraham@clcohio.org
Why What s New Matters The new features and technologies that follow are a part of the licensing you already pay for. Management tools similar to the ones you already know They matter because they can make your infrastructure more reliable and resiliant.
Overview Server 2012 Changes ReFS GUI Changes NIC Teaming DHCP Failover Storage Spaces Hyper V 3.0 Changes Virtual Switch Infrastructure Shared-Nothing Live Migrations Hyper V Replicas
ReFS
Under the Hood of Server 2012 ReFS New file system in Server 2012 Proactive protection against corruption The disk stays Online during repair Say Goodbye to Chkdsk Works with storage pools (more on those later) Tip: Does not work for boot drives or native SQL volumes
screenshot of a volume formatted with REFS
GUI is now a Feature
Under the Hood of Server 2012 GUI is now just an add-on Unlike previous versions, the GUI can be added or removed at will. Multiple GUI levels. RSATs allow you to manage tools with GUIs from your desktop instead of server.
Server Core
sconfig on Server Core
Minimum GUI
Native NIC Teaming
Under the Hood of Server 2012 Native NIC Teaming Teaming that is officially supported by MS Not dependent on manufacturer or speed of NICS Allows for active aggregation or failover Abstracts your VMs from physical network hardware
Screenshots of NIC Team Configuration
Screenshots of NIC Team Configuration
Screenshots of NIC Team Configuration
DHCP FailOver
Under the Hood of Server 2012 DHCP Failover Clustering Entire DHCP scopes active on each server Eliminates the issue of split scope servers running out of addresses Reservations sync between servers Failover is seamless. Secondary server assumes all responsibility if primary fails. Tip: Does Not work with BOOTP Tip: Easiest to set-up from scratch in 2012
Scope Properties: Failover Tab
Storage Spaces
Under the Hood of Server 2012 Storage Spaces JBOD performance that rivals that of SANs...at a fraction of the cost. Utilize commodity hardware for storage Abstract physical disks from storage volumes Eliminates cap on SSD performance on traditional RAID controllers Thin Provision ReFS Auto Rebuild if detected corruption
Storage Costs for Common Storage Solutions
SAN Performance vs Storage Spaces
Hyper-V 3.0
What s New in Server 2012? Hyper-V 3.0 Let s start a quick demo. This will show off some of the features that we are going to talk about...or it will fail miserably.
Virtual Switches
Hyper-V 3.0 on Server 2012 Virtual Switch Infrastructure Microsoft now supports Converged Network infrastructure VLANs tagged on virtual adapters; connectivity stays with VM when migrating No need for separate adapters for each VM When VS is built on a NIC Team, all VMs have redundant network connections*
This is installed as part of Hyper-V. You access it from Hyper-V manager.
Shared-Nothing Live Migrations
Hyper-V 3.0 on Server 2012 Shared Nothing Live Migrations VMs can be moved to new hosts with zero downtime Utilizes Local Storage or SMB shares New hardware for Polaris database? No problem! How s that Demo going?
Hyper-V Replicas
Hyper-V 3.0 on Server 2012 Hyper-V Replicas VM Replicas are stored on another host for failover Greatly reduces RPO and RTO for hardware failure Replica can be on-site or remote Failover is a manual process, but can be done in just seconds
Replication Health of Production Database
Hyper-V 3.0 on Server 2012 Hyper-V VM settings QoS can be set on NICs and on Storage* NUMA can be passed on to VM Helpful Tip: Enable NumLock on VM BIOS, set stop action to Shut Down instead of Pause
New features in 2012 (R2) can help improve Scalability, Reliability, and Resiliency The new features are easy to implement Microsoft s Developments for Azure infrastructure have translated into a great benefit for all users of Windows Server 2012
For Further Information Technet Blogs http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/ Channel 9 (MSDN videos) http://channel9.msdn. com/tags/windows+server+2012 Adian Finn, Microsoft MVP http://www.aidanfinn.com/ Me! agraham@clcohio.org